Heyman On Gresh & Zo: Red Sox Committed To Xander Bogaerts At Shortstop
BOSTON (CBS) - Xander Bogaerts of the Boston Red Sox has had a mixed start to his young baseball career.
While he wowed in the playoffs, he has gotten off to a lukewarm start in 2014, showing promise at the plate but also committing more blunders in the field and on the base paths than you'd like to see.
Scott Zolak, Hardy and Dan Shaughnessy were joined by CBSSports.com's MLB insider Jon Heyman to talk about Bogaerts and his standing with the coaches and the organization.
Heyman confirmed that the Red Sox were committed to Bogaerts and were not going to bring in any competition, like former Red Sox shortstop Stephen Drew.
"I talked to somebody with the Red Sox only a few days ago and, at least this person, and there may be varying opinions, maybe the coaching staff differs a little bit, maybe the coaching staff is more in favor of Drew, but this person said 'we're committed to Bogaerts,'" Heyman said.
"They understood from the beginning that Bogaerts is going to be a different kind of a shortstop. Bigger guy, going to give them more power. Going to probably or almost certainly provide more offense in the long run. Big arm, big reach and maybe not quite the range. But there have been big short stops."
Zo asked Heyman if the shortstop situation might cause a rift between upper management and John Farrell.
"I could see a disagreement, definitely," Heyman said. "I think you're right, I think it's likely that Farrell has been in favor of Drew probably as well. It's logical -- they won the World Series with Drew and at this point he's not going to get [Jhonny] Peralta money. Some people may say he's as good, or better than Peralta, but the circumstances being what they are with the draft choice attachments, it's not going to be a heck of a lot of money."
There's no way to predict the future, obviously, but Heyman concluded that the team will remain committed to Bogaerts -- that is, of course, until the day they are not committed to him.
"What I'm hearing from the front office, at least today, they're committed to Bogaerts," Heyman said. "Of course, they're going to say they're committed to Bogaerts until the day they're not committed because you're not going to let it out in advance. … The day they say they're not as committed to him is the day he's removed from shortstop but I do think he's going to get a little more time in this."
Listen below for the full discussion:
Heyman: Red Sox Committed To Xander Bogaerts At Shortstop
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